We're all in this together

We don’t all have the same issues or experiences but we all have our “feels”.

I had been feeling irritated and blah for the last two days. Hubby had a doctor’s follow up appointment and he likes me to go with him. “Four ears are better than two”, he says. Sometimes when I go with him it’s easy but other times old feelings from my traumas of many childhood surgeries, doctor and dental visits come up and I am uncomfortable. As we were sitting in the exam room waiting for the doctor I was practicing slow breathing and doing some inner tapping. It’s hard to tap on the points looking like this. Lightly rubbing my collar area helped too.
me masked

Finally the appointment was over and we headed to the store to treat ourselves to some fried chicken, mashed potatoes and apple cobbler. Nothing like rewards! :wink:

I had a dental appointment the next day and followed my NO. I called and rescheduled. I’m glad I did because before I knew tapping and reframing I would have gotten a stomach ache and had to cancel at the last minute. Plus I would have felt guilty. I’m so glad for these calls and learning new ways of looking at life.

On the call last night someone brought up Yesses and No’s. Rick talked about head, heart, gut and groin. He used taxes as an example saying his gut doesn’t like paying it but his heart is happy that some of the taxes go to help people who need help. We can look at a lot of things as we feel into those parts of our body.

Someone mentioned how they freeze in certain circumstances and Rick talked about how the freeze response can be intelligent because sometimes things just need to ripen. I would like to hear/read more about this.

Another person asked if they were showing up for something that matters or just doing what was expected.

I like to blog so that makes me a writer. I don’t have to write and sell a book or a bunch of articles to call myself a writer.

If someone draws or paints they can be an artist even if they never make money or show their creations in public.

I borrowed many benefits from the last call as I do on most calls. I slept deep and long. Today my irritation is gone and there is a little blah left but it’s much less. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Yeah, that really resonated with me too. If we just have a singular source of ‘Yes/No’ guidance then that is really just an autocracy…that’s just a version of being told what to do or what not to do. Having a boss that commands us. The idea of having multiple sources of intelligence being heard is something more akin to democracy. And listening and considering multiple sources of information is foundational to acting with wisdom I think.

Yes, yesterday’s meeting was a very potent one for me too.

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A beautiful reflection, @Angelsloveyou – thank you for capturing the experience and sharing it back for us… :heart_decoration:

I have always seen the intelligence in the freeze reaction. It’s an “expensive” reaction – almost no one likes the way it makes them feel or how it sticks around (and can even get over-active if it helped us survive someone really threatening!)

What I’ve noticed and brought up briefly on the call last night was how is someone has extensive freeze or dissociation in their history, they can heal considerably (!!) and their body-mind will still at times use freeze when conditions are not “right.”

By that I mean that lets say that growing up we had a lot of medical trauma. But we haven’t given ourselves permission to cancel if it isn’t a YES for us, if the physical, emotional, and logistical preconditions are not met.

Well, our gut can freeze (which leads to nausea). It stops working properly and gets our attention. It forces us to be…

True to our self-devotion, true to what has helped us to heal.

We can see the same thing with Fight reflex. If someone successfully used flight growing up, they can trigger the Fight even after they’ve really done the inner work to heal that pattern… if preconditions do not match what is really and deeply important for them.

“Survival” (primitive brain) includes our vows, our identity, and what we hold most sacred. Violation of those aspects of our world will, it certainly appears to me, activate whatever primitive brain reaction is our “default.”

I’m curious who else has observed this in self and others?

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That described me for sure. I’m so glad I could give myself permission to reschedule my dentist appointment instead of trying to force myself to go because I think I “should”.

Are people who will not discuss things flighters? Or Fleers?

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I am not sure about people who are unwilling to discuss things. It’s a defensive posture, sometimes rebellious ("I’m right and there’s no sense talking about it!), sometimes protective/avoidant (“I can’t take being criticized or feeling ashamed or or or or…”). At least that is what I have noticed…

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Please know I’m not being remotely facetious here - can you please explain heart and groin? Because I’ve only paid attention to head and gut. I spent decades feeling punched in the stomach pretty much 24/7.

Thanks for all the sharing here. That was an amazing session.

One other thing - Rick, when you spoke of the Coca Cola and water, that really resonated. I tend to numb out with food, and yesterday I asked my body what she really needed and she said “Something to drink.” It was very … interesting.

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Thank you for sharing, @Angelsloveyou ! I thankful that I can hear what’s going on in the calls and it seems like it is always so fruitful!

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Me too with the stomach. Maybe not punched but a lot of pinched for sure. Before tapping it was many times curled up in a fetal position punched. l’m interested in heart and groin too. I like heart and gut. Thanking my gut for letting me know something in my emotions hurts. Now I love my gut more because I used to be so angry with the way it hurt me not realizing it was trying to help.

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I’m really wanting to hear Rick’s thoughts on this. What I think of when I consider these areas is that firstly they are energy centers, chakras in the yogic tradition and Chinese medicine. In a more western science way of consideration they are areas of very dense nerve plexus. So, in a very real sense, they are brains…capable of ‘thought’…not the ‘talking in the head’ sort of thought but communication through sensation and imagery.

It’s known, for example, that the heart plexus sends far more information to our brain than the brain sends to the heart. I interpret that to mean that the heart is a sensory organ that reports back to the brain it’s findings as it extends out into the environment as well as the info it receives internally from our own thoughts and behaviours… The heart’s bio-electromagnetic field is 100 times stronger than the field generated by the brain…it extends 3 feet out from the body. Keep in mind that this is science telling us this…it’s measured with all the fancy little machines that go beep…beep…beep.

As far as ‘Groin’ goes what comes to mind is the old saying/observation that ‘he’s thinking with his dick’. Language contains obvious clues to our inner workings…a saying like that isn’t just a fanciful or metaphorical way of speaking…it’s a direct report (through the deep processes of language) of a somatic, neurological process at work in ourselves. Our language is chock full of ‘body talk’ centered around head, heart, gut and groin as areas of intelligence and it’s literal not metaphorical.

‘Head, Heart, Gut, Groin’ all are areas of intelligence that we can communicate with by ‘feeling into’ them for guidance. Actually, I think more accurately, those areas are always communicating with us and we can choose/learn to tune into them for their messages. My sense is that they communicate quite simply…‘Yes/No’…‘Stop/Go’…‘Safe/Dangerous’…‘Move Toward/Move Away From’ sorts of communication. I suspect that most of us rely on only one or two of these areas at the most with any regularity to make decisions. I know that’s true for me. So when Rick mentioned ‘H, H, G, G’ the other day it was very powerful to be reminded that we have other ‘brains’ that we can turn to for guidance. I kind of think of it this way…if we only act in response to one ‘voice’ guiding us then we are living in some kind of internal autocracy…the boss ordering us what to do. If we invite ‘voices’ from other centers of intelligence then we have something more akin to an internal democracy or co-creation or an internal ‘We Space’ maybe…(which doesn’t come without it’s challenges of course). And getting information from multiple sources is the basis of wisdom I believe. That’s where my thoughts are lead when I consider this.

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@Glenn covers the essence of what I mean.

I’ll add that “groin” yes can be genitals and in particular “womb space” and the sex and survival chakras. Dantian as well.

Virtually all energetic practices recognize centers in the body. While I simplify to head/heart/gut/groin to help bring us to considering and listening to awareness and guidance in different regions of the body, there’s enormous base of knowledge around the heart field, power centers, spiritual connections (third eye, crown, above the crown, aura).

When I can to understand and then experience my being on different energetic levels, it changed how I thought. My brain stopped being the sole arbiter of what was going on and what I wanted to do. It definitely changed my self-image. When we are aware of the heart field (see Heartmath if you want a geeky place to explore that), I started “knowing” in ways my brain just… couldn’t.

This also opened up the hearty support of my brain BY my heart. My inner experience is that when my energy is “glowing” the heart buoys and nourishes my brain so it is less exhausted and also less likely to trigger into primitive reactions.

My gut seems to alert me to narcissists. Yet, it is my heart that can hold compassion for their neurodiversity and my own, and can “guide” the right distance right depth (which isn’t very intimate or engaged with them for the most part).

My groin, yes, has primal desires and sensors as well. It also is a seat of cultivated and created energy! Qi gong practices can focus on our pelvic centers and cultivate the kind of Power WITH that goes so well with emotional freedom. My partner @Jem has some exercises for that.

To circle back to the topic name: when I am in tune with all these areas, I do get a sense of the “we-space where we’re all in this together.” There’s also a LOT more information of both informative and actionable kind.

Truth is that when I talk about primitive brain, it isn’t just what’s in the skull. For those of us who lived in hostile environments, our groin, gut, and heart have been integral in sensing and adapting.

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Thanks…that makes sense to me and expands my concept on that particular local of intelligence.

I was waiting for your response because I knew you would have understandings and descriptions that went beyond what I was able to consider. And you didn’t disappoint! LOL. I really appreciate you expanding on this because I find it so useful and readily available to put into practice. I suppose it feels so readily accessible to me because it’s already ‘up and running’…these are simply part of our biological inheritance as humans…I just have to learn to pay attention more to a system that is already in place and functioning. As I stated before I have the sense that most of us have our ‘go to’ somatic places that we check in with, maybe one or two, ( I know that’s true for me) but being in communication with all these energy/intelligence centers just feels so much more functional and thriving to me…getting in touch with a fuller expression of my human biological intelligence…I have such a deep yearning for that.

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I’m going to throw in here that I FINALLY realized a few months back just how much tension I was holding in my pelvis. I’ve had to practice turning sideways to the mirror and consciously relaxing and seeing how much more curve I suddenly had in my spine.

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I went through a very hard period months back when my pelvis, stomach, and groin were so tense and almost locked up that I had trouble pooping. :poop: I know, TMI but I had to tap and tap and tap. Also talk to my intestines, rub my belly, take walks, drink a lot of water, do deep breathing. I’d even tap the points and say, “It’s safe to relax and let go, it’s safe to poop.” Other times in my life when I was so agoraphobic, I wanted to go places and when I tried I’d get a stomach ache and have to go to the bathroom NOW. I would be so angry at my gut and say stuff like “why are you doing this to me again?” Now I know better. So this head, heart, gut, is a real thing.

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Oh is it ever real…this is fundamental real…this is ‘should be taught in school’ real… :slight_smile:

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Now I am a little embarrassed about posting the poop one. :grimacing:

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Jean, the same reaction I used to have with poop stuff. I mean, it’s easy to assume that shit is shitty, not that I was being shitty towards my body by not listening to my gut and bowels – that were very loudly and painfully communicating… in a language I had yet to really be aware of much less get fluent in.

So… I’m glad you brought it up! :poop:

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It’s okay Jean…

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It occurred to me some years ago that we are essentially, from a biological perspective, walking/talking mobile compost piles. Poop is the end result of the internal composting we do. I figured that out because I was in charge of composting at a previous job and we had a large garden compost pile out back that I really enjoyed managing. It dawned on me that all the elements in a healthy compost pile (heat, oxygen, bacteria, moisture, movement) are all present inside us, or at least should be, for us to compost our diet effectively. Of course we like to complicate the composting process with emotions, something the backyard compost pile doesn’t have to account for. :slight_smile:

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:joy: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: Thanks Glenn, that picture really made me laugh. Good for that head, heart, gut and spincter too :wink:

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Indeed…lol. :poop:

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